


The Space We Meet

by Cydersyrup



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mental Instability, Mild Blood, References to Illness, Regret, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Vaping, bathroom conversation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:20:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25687192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cydersyrup/pseuds/Cydersyrup
Summary: It isn't always like this, Taeyong thinks. He’s not usually lying fully-clothed in a bathtub full of cold water on a Saturday night with the door closed and the lights turned off.
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Lee Taeyong
Comments: 12
Kudos: 62





	The Space We Meet

**Author's Note:**

> So...I had a very calm, collected breakdown and this happened.
> 
> Sensitive content ahead, please take heed of the tags.

The way Taeyong falls into his bad place is like this: he closes his eyes to darkness and deafening white noise, then wakes up in a bathtub filled with cold water.

Not hot.

Not even lukewarm.

_Cold._

And it isn't always like this, Taeyong thinks. He’s not usually lying fully-clothed in a bathtub full of cold water on a Saturday night with the door closed and the lights turned off.

To be fair, he doesn’t even know what he’s trying to accomplish here besides putting himself at higher risk for pneumonia. His skin tingles from the cold and the water tastes a little metallic when Taeyong ducks his head just low enough to lap it.

He has no idea how long he’s been lying in this tub, or even when he made the move to consciously fill up a bathtub with cold water and get in. It’s just one of those things that he doesn't realize he’s done until something in his mind tells him ‘hey, this is _strange_ ’.

Somewhere off to his side, he can hear a faint clicking sound. It’s barely audible, so quiet that if Taeyong isn’t searching for a distraction, he would’ve missed it.

_Click. Click. Click._

“You’ve been lying there for a long time,” a voice murmurs softly in the darkness. “What are you thinking about, Taeyong?”

“I don’t know,” Taeyong whispers up at the ceiling, watching as shadows dance over the pale plaster. “Maybe you, Doyoung. Maybe I’m thinking about you.”

“Oh?” Doyoung’s voice has an amused lilt to it. “Interesting given your situation I’m the one you’re worried about.”

Taeyong barely tilts his head, eyeing where Doyoung is sitting on the toilet lid, legs crossed and a vape pen tucked under his tongue. He’s just barely visible, his dark clothes and hair almost blending into the shadows of the room. It’s his face that gives him away—Doyoung’s pearly skin reflecting the warm glow of the candle that’s lit on the countertop. He’s pale. Too pale.

“Doie,” Taeyong whispers, and somehow his throat feels tight. “Why am I here?”

Doyoung taps his pen against his chin thoughtfully. “Here as in still alive on this planet? Or here as in soaking in the bathtub with your clothes on?”

“Why am I soaking in the bathtub with my clothes on?”

Doyoung rolls his pen over his tongue and sucks gently at the tip. Thin wisps of vapor escapes from the corner of his lips as he speaks. “You tell me, Yong. What does this remind you of?”

Taeyong smiles mirthlessly. “That summer...when we were at the beach.” The memories come flooding back almost immediately. “I wasn’t paying attention and let the high tide carry me away.”

“You were drowning.”

“And you dove in and saved me.”

“It was May and the waters were freezing,” Doyoung recalls. “I hated it.”

“Then why did you do that?” Taeyong asks.

“Do what?”

“Save me.”

Doyoung lets out an incredulous snort. “What, like a couple hours of being cold is worse than watching you drown?” 

“I don’t know.” Taeyong pauses. “I’ve never drowned before.”

“Would you _like_ to drown?” Doyoung asks. “You honestly think the process of dying is fun?”

“Yes.”

“Come on, we both know that’s a lie.” After a short silence, Doyoung continues, “How did we come to this, Taeyong?”

“I don’t know.”

Doyoung’s eyes glisten in the dark. They’re a different shade from the shadows that surround him, and Taeyong feels the chills those eyes manage to induce in him. Even after all these years, Doyoung’s stare still makes him feel the same way.

Haunted.

Taeyong stretches out a hand towards Doyoung, and he doesn’t know what he expects. For Doyoung to reach back and hold his hand like how they used to? For him to back away and disappear? Nothing at all?

Turns out, none of Taeyong’s speculations are right. Doyoung watches him, eyes flickering between Taeyong's hand and his face, and finally raises his own hand to push Taeyong’s down.

Taeyong’s heart breaks a little. “Doyoung...why?”

Doyoung smiles. It’s a small gesture, filled with an old sadness, and Taeyong feels its agony inside his own throat. 

“Doyoung—”

“Trying isn’t gonna work, Taeyong,” Doyoung says softly. “Not with us. Not anymore.” He inhales a lungful of vapor and lets it out in one large puff. The air smells like caramel as he exhales. “You’ll just hurt yourself again. What’re you trying to do?”

“See a ghost,” Taeyong whispers, turning his head ever so slightly to meet Doyoung’s eyes. “And looks like I succeeded.”

Doyoung sighs, his breath coming out in a perfect ring of vapor. “Taeyong.”

“Don’t say it, Doyoung.” Tears prickle at the corners of Taeyong’s eyes, but he refuses to let them fall. “Just...don’t. I know.”

“Then why are you still trying so hard?”

“I don’t know,” Taeyong says for what feels like the millionth time. His head is going fuzzy and the air is heavy with sweetness as he inhales. The familiar candy-like scent and Doyoung’s presence calms him a little, bringing him back into his own head instead of the black void he’s been submerged in for who knows how long.

Doyoung watches him silently, face expressionless and pen tucked in between his lips. He doesn’t inhale, and just sits. Sits and watches. It reminds Taeyong of how Doyoung used to be back when they were teenagers. Doyoung never engages in conflict. Never gets involved. When the world is burning in front of him, he sits by with a mouthful of flavored vapor and watches silently as hell is raised.

Taeyong honestly can’t tell if he genuinely enjoys watching or not. Doyoung’s face never showed anything other than a blank nonchalance. Even when angered, his expression remains ice cold. Uncaring. Unfazed.

“Maybe that’s why,” Taeyong muses, more to himself than anybody. “Maybe that’s why you left.”

Doyoung pulls his pen away from his lips. “Left what?”

“Our friends. This world.” Taeyong chuckles bitterly against his palm and tastes iron. “Me. Maybe it’s why you left me.”

“Does there always have to be a purpose behind why things are the way they are?” Doyoung mutters, and there’s a soft click as his pen taps against his teeth. 

_Click. Click. Click._

“How else can we explain what happens in the world?” Taeyong murmurs, feeling a tear creep down the corner of his eye as he looks at Doyoung. “How can I explain _you_?”

“Some things just don’t have answers.”

_Click. Click. Click._

“Well, maybe they should.”

“In a perfect world, they would.” Doyoung’s eyes shift slowly to meet Taeyong’s. “But this ain’t a perfect world.”

A sound escapes Taeyong. It’s high and breathy, ragged at the edges and raw. He doesn’t even recognize it as his own laughter until after the sound has passed. 

“You would know,” he rasps. “You’d know better than anyone.”

“I knew, yeah.” _Click. Click._ “But what could I do about it?”

“Nothing,” Taeyong whispers.

“Nothing,” Doyoung echoes.

“So you just decided you’re too good for this world and moved on?” Taeyong can taste the bitterness in his own voice. “Because you didn’t want to fight anymore?”

“Fight? For what?” Doyoung sucks at his pen again. Exhales. “People? You? There’s nobody to fight. Nothing to fight for. Death knocked on my door, and I answered.”

“Nothing to fight for?” Taeyong says sullenly. “Nothing? What about me? Jae? Mark? Taeil? We were waiting, hoping, praying for you to get better. We all loved you.”

Doyoung sighs. White vapor clouds Taeyong’s vision and blocks Doyoung's figure completely. “You make it sound like I had a say in it, Taeyong. I didn’t.”

“You could’ve tried,” Taeyong chokes out as tears slip past his lashes. His chest aches something awful with every word he speaks. “We were waiting for you.”

Doyoung is silent for a long time following that statement. Taeyong fights down the rest of his tears as he waits for an answer, and tries to place all his emotions on something, anything, other than Doyoung.

“Maybe you should’ve just let me go,” Doyoung finally says. His voice is small and quiet. “We all knew the statistics for recovering. It was a one-way street.”

“We hoped,” Taeyong retaliates weakly. “We had that much.”

“And what good did that do?” Doyoung asks. The look he gives Taeyong is carefully blank, but resigned. Tired. “What did all your hope accomplish in the end?”

Taeyong looks up to the ceiling, as though the white plaster held the answers to all of their questions. Nothing comes up. The room is quiet except for the sound of his own breathing and the occasional click of plastic against teeth. Taeyong’s body has long lost all sensation, and he feels more like a suspended, shapeless mass than something within his control.

Doyoung sits just at the corner of Taeyong’s vision, waiting patiently for an answer.

“I…” His tongue feels like lead in his mouth. “It accomplished nothing.” That word seems to be a common denominator of their entire conversation so far. Taeyong wonders what it says about the nature of his and Doyoung’s relationship.

A smile curves over Doyoung’s lips—barely a tug at the corners of his mouth. “Exactly. So why try anymore? Stop trying.” His voice drops to a softer tone. “Rest now, Taeyong. You’ve done enough.”

Taeyong listens, and lets himself relax into the water. The coldness latches onto his skin and pulls him under, until he’s completely submerged. He stays like that for a while, letting his breath out in small spews of bubbles that disappear long before he can move to catch them. His hair floats off his face and tickles his skin when he turns his head even the slightest bit. 

A familiar pain blooms in Taeyong’s chest, tight and burning, and he waits it out like every other time. Through the muffled silence of the water around him, a familiar sound makes its way into Taeyong’s mind. It’s faint, inaudible if he ignores it, but _there_. 

_Click. Click. Click. Click._

His lungs feel like they're going to explode. His head is going foggy.

_Click. Click. Click._

Taeyong can feel his pulse thudding behind his eyeballs. His muscles jerk and twitch involuntarily, inching towards the surface of the water.

_Click. Click._

It hurts. It hurts so fucking much and Taeyong just wants to die.

_Click._

Taeyong sits up, splashing water out of the tub as he gasps for air. His arms flail for a surface to hold as his body heaves for oxygen. The feeling in his limbs come back slowly as his breaths begin to even out. Taeyong sees spots of black and white when he opens his eyes, and it takes a couple seconds of rapid blinking for the stars to go away.

“Doyoung—” Taeyong stops when he sees the unoccupied toilet. The light is gone too, and the smell of caramel lingers only faintly in the air.

There is no more vapor. No more soft voices and rhythmic clicking of plastic against teeth. No more Doyoung.

Once again, the scented candle has burned out before Taeyong can say the words that've been weighing on his heart for so long. 

And then it’s just him, alone in a tub full of cold water. The darkness envelops him in a chilling embrace, and Taeyong wishes that he can just fall into that space again and find Doyoung. He wants to see him. Touch him. Hold him.

“Doyoung.” Taeyong smiles up at the ceiling, stretching out a hand. He imagines Doyoung reaching down from above to take it. “Wait for me.”

_For however long it takes._

_You’re no deader than I am._


End file.
